We’ve made significant changes to the way controllers communicate with touch devices in Designer 2.14. If you’re using TPS, TPS 5 or TPS 8 devices in Designer 2.14 or later, read on to find out what’s new.
On this page
- What to Know Before Upgrading
- TPS, TPS 5 and TPS 8 are Classified as Remote Devices
- Interface Assignment
- Interface Delivery via Controller
- Improvements to Touch Device Triggering
- System Limits
- Remote Site Implications
- API v10 Changes
What to Know Before Upgrading
New and currently commissioning projects using any TPS devices can take immediate advantage of these remote device improvements in v2.14. Proceed with caution if upgrading an existing project: if triggering from touch controls is predominantly starting timelines or recalling scenes, or overriding intensity and colour, you should be confident that your programming will work as before but do take time to confirm functionality after upgrading.
If your project’s touch triggers have a lot of conditions, particularly ones that were tested on the TPS device directly, they will now be tested by the device owner (the controller to which the touch device is associated), and you may see different results. Ensure you allow time to thoroughly check and, if necessary, adjust touch triggers.
Consult the updated online Help documentation or contact Support for further advice.
Important: Always make a copy of existing projects before modifying them in a new software version. It is a good idea to have the installer for the existing software version so that you can revert your hardware back to that version if required.
💡 Tip: You can revert TPS devices to firmware from previous Designer versions if required. Find out how here.
TPS, TPS 5 and TPS 8 are Classified as Remote Devices
All Designer TPS devices are now added to projects using the ‘New Device’ button in the Network tab, which is also where remote devices can be added.
💡 Tip: This allows touch devices to be used with Remote Device Online / Offline triggers and conditions.
All TPS devices are identified throughout the project using their number. Starting in Designer 2.14, numbers are unique to the type of touch device, meaning it’s possible to have a TPS 5 number 1 and a TPS 8 number 1, but not two TPS 5s both set to number 1. Additionally, touch device numbers are now separate from controller numbers.
💡 Tip: Use the Name field to describe where your touch devices are, for example: ‘Main Entrance’ or ‘Function Room’, for easy identification elsewhere in the software.
Note: Designer TPC continues to operate as a controller. The TPC’s touchscreen can be identified in triggers using ‘Local’.
Interface Assignment
Interfaces can be assigned to touch devices using the ‘Devices…’ button in the Interface tab. This popover shows all devices compatible with the selected interface. It’s possible to assign the same interface to multiple touch devices.
Alternatively, an interface can be assigned within TPS properties in the Network tab.
Interface Delivery via Controller
Touch devices now receive their interface from their associated controller. Prior to these changes, interfaces were uploaded directly to the touch device from Designer.
After project upload, you will briefly see the message ‘Waiting to receive interface from controller’ displayed while the touch device establishes a connection with its associated controller.
Following this, the message ‘Loading project data’ indicates the touch device has received its interface and is beginning to load the relevant project information.
Note: This process can take a few seconds and will be longer for more complex interfaces.
As well as laying the groundwork for different ways to interact with Designer interfaces in the future, delivering touch device interfaces from the controller allows touch devices to restore their state after temporarily losing connection with their associated controller.
Improvements to Touch Device Triggering
You can now specify an individual touch device in triggers, allowing you to act only on events originating from a particular touch device. These changes also apply to conditions and actions.
This functionality allows you to easily configure behaviour for individual touch devices, greatly improving triggering flexibility on projects using touch devices.
With this functionality, simplify your programming by sharing one interface between multiple touch devices and using a combination of ‘Any’ touch device and specific touch devices to achieve the desired behaviour. For example, the triggers shown below will start the same scene when ‘On’ is pressed on any device, but different scenes when ‘Off’ is pressed depending on which device the button was pressed on.
In Designer 2.14.2 and later, touch events originating from ‘Any’ touch device can trigger touch actions on only the ‘Incoming Device’ (the touch device from which the trigger originated), allowing device-specific responses from a single trigger.
System Limits
Before Designer 2.14.0, all TPS devices counted towards the system limit of 40 LPC family controllers in a single project. From Designer 2.14, all TPS count as Remote Devices and no longer impact the project’s controller count. With this change, we’ve increased the number of remote devices supported by some controllers. Updated remote device system limits are as follows:
| Remote Devices per Controller |
| A TPC or an LPC 1, 2 or 4 can now support up to 64 remote devices. |
| An LPC X can support up to 100 remote devices. |
| A VLC/VLC+ can support up to 100 remote devices. |
| Remote Devices in Project |
| Maximum 200 across all controllers. |
Note: Remote Devices are RIO, EDN, TPS and BPS.
Remote Site Implications
If a TPS device is already connected to a Remote Site as a standalone device after the upgrade to 2.14 (following the usual remote device firmware upgrade route) this device will show as Offline. In a future v2.14 release, TPS devices will report in their controller’s Remote Devices tab, where firmware can be synced for future updates.
Once the update is complete, users can safely remove the original device from the Remote Site.
API v10 Changes
Launched alongside Designer 2.14, Designer’s v10 Lua and HTTP APIs gain a touch device object, returned using a new get_touch_device function. The touch device object has the following member functions:
- set_control_value
- set_control_state
- set_control_caption
- set_interface_page
- set_interface_enabled
- set_interface_locked
Note: These functions are still available on TPC controllers using the controller object.
Select the touch device you’re interested in by providing the parameters:
- type (can be one of the constants TPS, TPS5 or TPS8)
- num (the remote device number chosen within the Designer project)
For example:
tps = get_touch_device(TPS5, 1)
tps:set_interface_page(4, SNAP)For further information and examples, please refer to the online documentation for Designer API v10.
